A Night in the Life
by Model-D
Summary: After being mugged, Will wakes up in the hospital to learn some disturbing news.
1. Chapter 1

A NIGHT IN THE LIFE

A/n: This is NOT my best effort, but I wanted to take a "stab", so to speak, at a crime drama. It contains scenes with violence, so don't say you weren't forewarned. It mainly revolves around Will and Jack. Karen isn't in this story. There's about a dozen nitpicking things wrong with the plot, but if you can overlook that and enjoy it "as is", I hope you can give it a complimentary review.

I don't own any rights to _Will & Grace_ or the characters therein and I'm not making any money writing these stories. After all, I'm not in the "union".

_Confrontation_

It was a socially dismal Saturday night for Will and Jack. They had been at the Atom Bar for hours and there were no prospects to be had. Everyone else seemed to have already paired off for the evening. The two wallflowers sat at the bar and watched everyone else having a good time chatting or casually dancing to the jukebox. Around 11 PM, they agreed that it was useless to stay. There was no incentive for them to hang around.

When they exited the club, it had already started to drizzle. It hung in the air and made it seem cooler than it was for mid-September. Will zipped his windbreaker, but Jack, depressed at not having found a companion for that evening, carelessly slung his jacket over his shoulder and shuffled morosely by Will's side. Leave it to Jack to get his hopes up to the highest acme. This only left himself open to be dashed to the lowest nadir. Will was more careful and consistent in his search for the ideal partner. Jack was still on the relationship roller coaster, getting all hot and bothered about one prospect for a day or two, then blowing them off in search of another conquest.

Will asked, "Want to take a cab?"

Jack just shrugged. Will scanned the street for a taxi, but none were readily evident at the moment. They began to trudge towards their apartment building. After they had walked a few blocks, a shadowy figure stepped out in front of them from an alley. A switchblade glinted in the streetlamp. Startled and afraid, Jack edged behind Will.

"What do you want?" Will asked crossly.

The figure just made a motion with his knife for them to step in the alley. Will was concerned for not only his own safety, but also for Jack's. Knowing in most cases it was better to go along with a mugger, he complied, interposing himself between the stranger and Jack. When they were several yards into the passage, the mugger told them to stop and turn around.

"Now…empty your pockets!" the miscreant gruffly demanded and held out his free hand to accept the contents.

Jack didn't have anything on him and turned out his pockets to prove it. Will, however, had cash and a credit card. The thief made an impatient gesture to hand them over.

"And your watch while you're at it!" he growled.

Will held out the valuables, but as the crook reached for them, Will slowly pulled them back toward himself, making the thug reach even further and be off balance. Will suddenly grabbed the crook's arm that held the knife and raised it in the air.

"Run, Jack!" Will shouted as he struggled with the crook.


	2. Chapter 2

Sacrifices 

Jack started to run away when he suddenly realized that he had spent his whole life running from conflicts. In an instant he saw Will on one side of an equation – Will, the successful attorney; Will, the quick-witted _bon vivant_; Will, the thoughtful and trustworthy friend. On the other side of the equation was Jack – Jack the mediocre entertainer; Jack the moocher; Jack the loser; Jack the big goose egg. Now he realized what he had to do. He turned back in the direction of the fracas. Will was starting to have difficulty fending off the more muscular and larger framed assailant. Jack whipped his jacket around and slapped it across the villain's face. Temporarily distracted, the hoodlum released his hold on Will. As the mugger struggled an instant with the garment, Jack pulled his panting friend away. The thief quickly recovered and made a lunge at them. The arm of the crook came plunging down towards Will, who tried to twist out of the way. Will groaned as the knife sliced through coat and shirt fabric and grazed his upper arm. He fell to his knees, clapping his other had over the gash. Jack, seeing his friend injured, launched himself at the lawbreaker and started pummeling away with his fists. Blocks away, sirens started to blare. Someone in one of the adjacent buildings must have heard the scuffle and call the authorities. The thief, however, landed a lucky punch on Jack that sent him spinning. He smashed face first into a nearby wall. Momentarily stunned, the mugger took advantage and plunged his weapon into Jack's body. The felon, hearing the sirens getting closer, withdrew the knife and fled. Jack turned and slid slowly down the wall leaving a red streak on it.

"Will…" he moaned softly as he slumped to the ground.

Will, who had been paralyzed with physical and emotional shock, slowly focused on the terrible scene before him. He crawled over to where Jack lay sprawled on the pavement. Kneeling beside his friend, Will clutched Jack to his chest. The rain was falling much harder now.

"Jack…Jack…are you okay? Say something!" Will cried.

Jack was pale, cold and unresponsive. Will started to sob as the rain carried the blood gushing from their wounds and blended it together in a pool on the ground. Headlights turned in from the street illuminating the alley. The sirens stopped. The last thing Will remembered was a uniformed police officer exiting the vehicle and walking toward him.


	3. Chapter 3

_Reports_

The next thing Will knew he was laying on his back under bright lights with an unfamiliar but fatherly face looking down at him. His right arm just below the shoulder was throbbing like hell.

"Hello," the face spoke, "You're in New York City Hospital. I'm Dr. Tuttle. Can you tell me your name?"

"Uh…Will…William Truman," Will answered thickly.

The doctor nodded and pointing to something on a clipboard, handed it to another man.

"Now, Mr. Truman, I want you to know that you sustained a laceration to your right upper arm. The penetration was not sufficient to injure any muscles, but you did lose quite a lot of blood. The wound has been stitched. You've been given a transfusion and a tetanus inoculation. Now you have to stay on antibiotics for a few days. When we see you are out of danger, you can be released."

To Will, who was raging inside with emotion, the doctor seemed so calm and indifferent, like he was delivering a lecture to his pre-med students.

"Jack…what about Jack?" Will muttered.

"Who?" asked the doctor.

"Jack…well, really John…John McFarland." Will replied as the man now holding the clipboard made another notation on it.

"I don't know, Mr. Truman. There were several men brought in by ambulance last night around the same time. You were the patient assigned to me in the ER, but I'll try to find out for you. Meanwhile, there are some police detectives that want to talk to you. Are you up to it?"

Will nodded. He thought they might have some answers for him. As the doctor stepped back, two plain-clothes policemen loomed into Will's field of vision.

"We won't disturb you too long, sir," one said. "I'm Sergeant Newman and this is Sergeant Noonan," he said indicating the other man who was holding a notebook.

"We just want to get your description of what happened."

Right then, a nurse poked her head in the door and announced that there was a call for Detective Noonan. Both cops started towards the door.

"No, Detective Noo-NAN," she emphasized.

After Noonan left, Newman started the questioning. The cop asked questions and Will answered the best he could.

"By the way, where is Jack. Is he okay?" Will implored.

Newman shuffled uncomfortably.

"WHERE IS HE?" Will almost shouted.

Why wasn't anyone telling him? Agitated, Will started to get out of the hospital bed, but Officer Newman held him down as Dr. Tuttle ran for assistance. He returned quickly, followed by a nurse with a syringe. She injected Will with it. He immediately started to feel woozy.

"Call Grace…Grace Adler. I want to see Grace," he moaned, as everything went dark.

Will awoke with a throbbing in his head to match the one in his arm. Everything looked blurry, but he could make out the familiar outline of Grace seated by his bedside. He slowly focused on her.

"Grace?" he moaned.

"Oh, Will…I was so worried. You still hadn't come back by one in the morning. Then I got the phone call…" she trailed off. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. What time is it" Will sighed.

"Just a little after two PM," she responded.

"Right now I'm more concerned about Jack," Will said.

"Oh…Jack…" Grace muttered, looking down.

"GRACE! What is it? What happened? Where is he?" Will demanded.

Grace slowly exhaled. "Maybe you should get some more rest, sweetie."

Will was getting pretty annoyed by now at everyone's evasive attitudes.

"I've been 'resting' the last fourteen hours!" Will snapped, and started to get up from the bed and noticed the bandage on his injured arm.

"Oh, Will," Grace said suddenly and softly, looking away, "I…I hate to be the one to tell you, but…Jack…Jack didn't make it." She started to sob.


	4. Chapter 4

_Mystery_

Will sat heavily back on the bed.

"WHAT?" Will couldn't believe his ears. He tried to reason that this was some bad dream he was having after being given tranquilizes. "Why didn't anyone tell me?" he whispered.

"I'm…I'm so sorry, Will. They just thought that someone close should break it to you," Grace said, choking back her own tears as she stared at the floor. She couldn't bear to look at Will just then..

"Jack…Jack..." Will moaned in shocked disbelief, also looking at nothing in particular.

Just then Dr. Tuttle appeared. He could tell that Will had found out, so he asked Will for a positive I.D. on Jack's body since he was his closest friend. Being squeamish, Grace hadn't wanted to do it. "Are you up to it, Mr. Truman?"

Will thought he could never be ready for what he had to do, but nodded. The doctor procured a wheelchair. Grace put her had reassuringly on Will's shoulder as he ensconced himself into the chair. As Will and Tuttle approached the fateful room, Will tried to steel himself for what was before him. At the door, Dr. Tuttle paused.

"Let's do it!" Will croaked.

Dr. Tuttle backed into the door, opening it and pulling Will in behind him, and then turned around. It was dank and unnervingly quiet in the morgue. The doctor scanned the cabinets, and then finding the one he sought, pulled it out. Will squinted his eyes tightly shut. The awful sound of the cabinet sliding out sent a chill through his body.

"Okay, Mr. Truman, whenever you're ready," he heard the doctor say.

Will slowly opened his eyes, still not really prepared for what he thought we was going to see. He stared blankly at the dead man that the doctor had revealed and blinked a few times. Then Will Truman burst out in hysterical laughter.


	5. Chapter 5

A/n: I re-wrote this ending chapter about a dozen times becoming less and less satisfied with each re-write. I finally settled on this one. I hope I made the correct choice.

_  
Solved_

Will knew that the deceased man before him was definitely NOT Jack McFarland. The doctor looked stunned at Will's reaction and thought that he'd have to summon help from the psych ward.

"Sorry, doctor," Will said wiping the tears of relief from his eyes as he gazed at the middle-aged, stockier, sandy haired man. "I don't mean to be insensitive at someone else's misfortune, but this isn't Jack. Jack is slimmer, younger and has dark brown hair."

"Hmmm," pondered Dr. Tuttle. "I've looked at the hospital reports from last evening. There were three men admitted about the same time last night - you, this unidentified man that succumbed during the night and another who was admitted as Daniel Fleekerman."

Will thought a moment. Dare he hope what might have happened?

"Uh, what does this Fleekerman look like?" Will inquired.

"I haven't seen him. He's under Dr. Osborne's care."

"Well…" Will raised his eyebrows.

Dr. Tuttle was catching on to Will's logic. He wheeled Will to the nearest nursing station and flipped through the computerized records briefly and found that Daniel Fleekerman was in room 626 just having been transferred from Intensive Care. They made their way to the room on the sixth floor. Again Will braced himself for disappointment.

"According to the chart, he's under sedation, so he probably won't be awake or awaken when we enter," Tuttle explained.

"It's all right," Will said. "It's just to make an identification."

They entered the room. A shadowy figure lay on the bed. Dr. Tuttle clicked on the room light.

"JACK! Oh, Jack!" Will cried, relieved at least that his friend had been found and that he was alive.

"This is your friend?" The stunned doctor asked.

"Yes...yes," Will sighed in relief. "But how come he was admitted as Daniel Fleekerman?"

"That's something I'd like to know too," Tuttle responded.

Later, back in Will's room, Dr. Tuttle and the same two detectives are conferring with him and Grace when another call is announced.

"Call for Detective Newman," the nurse declared.

Again both cops start to respond.

"NO! New-MAN!" she emphasized.

Sergeant Noonan was left to explain.

"So you see, your friend had no identification on him. Fleekerman's video store card was found on the ground in the alley along with your credit card. After you identified yourself to Dr. Tuttle, we assumed that the other card was Mr. McFarland's. And you kept mentioning 'Jack', so we thought he was the unidentified man who was brought in around the same time."

"I think what happened is that the mugger lost that card in the scuffle. Now you know who to start looking for," Will said. "By the way, doctor, how is Jack? I forgot to ask in the excitement of the last hour."

"He was very fortunate. It was a serious wound, but amazingly, given the location of the injury, it didn't involve any major organ damage. I think in a week or ten days, he can be discharged," the doctor replied. "But don't let him overdo it for a while."

A few days later, Will was released with instructions to visit his own doctor in a few days and have his dressing changed. Within a week, he should be able to remove it and go about his normal routine. Grace was on hand to see that he made it home okay. As Dr. Tuttle signed the discharge forms, he informed Will that Jack could now have visitors briefly, but couldn't be released for about another week since his injury was more severe necessitating additional treatments.Will thanked the doctor, then he and Grace made their way to Jack's room. As they entered, Jack responded to the noise and turned his head towards his visitors. A huge smile spread across his face.

"How ya doin', Jack?" Will asked enthusiastically. Even though Jack was still pale and weak, Will was relieved at how much better he looked than the last time he saw him. Apparently he was responding very well to his therapy.

"Will, you're okay!" Jack croaked weakly. "They told me what happened. Leave it to a hot-shot lawyer to figure out what the cops couldn't!"

"I'm just happy that you're going to be all right, Jack," Will responded. "And thank you for coming to my rescue."

Jack just blushed slightly and looked away. "Oh, Will! You don't have to say _anything_. We really did it together."

"The doctor said you can home in about a week, if you behave yourself," Grace added, interrupting the debate she saw developing about who was the braver hero.

"And if I don't want to behave myself?" Jack responded batting his eyes.

Grace just sighed as she hugged Will, relieved and thankful that he two friends were on the mend and everything was going to be okay.

The end.


End file.
